Nishant Shah [24/03/09 10:56 +0530]:
On a different analogy, this reminds me of the Englit classes where old
foggy professors who looked like they were chanelling the spirit of Chaucer,
would come and sneer at authors who were 'successful' or 'rich' or 'both',
and made snide remarks about artists 'who were appreciated in their own
time!'
The problem is that there IS a grain of truth in this, and several 'NGOs'
do exist whose sole purpose in life is to receive funding and convert it
into hefty salaries and foreign junkets, but little else.
They are the sort that give 'civil society' such a bad name that I have
seen people who actually DO a lot of public service, on their own time and
through their workplace (both), emphatically resent it if they are labeled
civil society.
I've come across several characters of that type, running the fellowships
program for a couple of asiapac / south asian conferences, and talking to
people who provide fellowship funding for several conferences around the
world.
You know the type I'm talking about .. The sort who claim to work for NGOs
in the field, and then once they have their ticket and hotel booked for
them and your invitation letter has got them a visa, promptly turn up to
collect their perdiem, and then go shopping / sightseeing. The time they
sign the registration paperwork and collect their per diem will be the last
you ever see of them. If they do turn up, well .. there's free wifi and
they have a laptop so they spend more time downloading random stuff than
they actually attend sessions.
We do try to minimize this type of freeloader coming in, and we have a
comprehensive evaluation program for fellows, but we cant avoid them
totally given the number of fellowship applications that come in.
suresh
